GRANT TURNS ON MEDIA

It wasn’t difficult to predict the media barrage that was going to be put on Avram today at the pre West Ham match conference, after the loss against Tottenham in the Carling cup final it seemed Avram would have a lot of questions to answer from the relentless Press and the wall’s seemed to be closing in for him. Only it was Avram that came out of the rope’s swinging today and turned the table on the hungry reporters, gloves on….

Avram ‘It isn’t because of the journalists we lost the game against Tottenham but the papers need to check the facts and not what the agents told them.

‘When I came, I understood the reaction but I didn’t agree with it because if a new player comes to my team, I give him one or two months to show me what he can do.

‘But this is the traditional welcome in England so I respected the media but now, a few of them I don’t respect so much.

‘They lost integrity and lost proportion because we lost one game. ‘If they want to say anything about the game and that we didn’t play so well, I will not say anything against this. But they took it too far and I don’t like it because it hurt my players and this is not the right way.’

‘I take responsibility for everything I decide and we won 24 of 35 games. ‘The spirit is very good. We lost one game last weekend, we are very sorry, especially for the supporters because I saw when we won against Tottenham in the league what it means to them.’

‘From my heart, I have respected all the media in England very much although even when I came, they didn’t give me any credit.

‘They didn’t behave so nicely, they took it too far instead of waiting two months but I didn’t say anything. But since then, I have heard a lot of lies.

‘I don’t think because we lost one game, the media need to lose their integrity and create stories that didn’t happen. Reporters need to respect their profession as much as I respect them.’

Avram showed character today in his own quiet win over the media, which will surely do him no favours in the morning’s papers. Although there was little in the way of talk about the week ahead apart from confirming he has an injury free squad to choose from, which is good news indeed, a nice win in another London derby might get the momentum going, the best thing from here seems to go forwards, go on Chelsea.